626 
FOREST AND STREAM 
October, 1919 
explain a few things. There is a rise 
of about nine feet in the tide and many 
of the small creeks at low water will 
not float a flat ducking boat except in 
the little pools. The bottom is sandy, 
the sides are a stiff mat of grass roots 
.and mud rising almost straight up six 
•to ten feet to the top of the marsh. 
There are two kinds of marsh — high and 
low — the former is fairly firm, covered 
'with a low grass and is evidently older 
■or earlier formed. The low marsh is 
aeveral feet lower and grown thick with 
high reeds of thatch. It is covered 
at high water, but the thatch projects 
a few inches above the surface and 
makes fair cover even then. 
My boat, or skiff, was a flat bottomed, 
narrow, high-sided abortion, decked over 
fore and aft and with a cockpit and 
washboards. It was about eleven feet 
long. Billy has since perfected a beauti- 
fully shaped ducking boat, decked over, 
that will ride in a very rough sea. He 
has built many of them since that day. 
Presently, I got my boat into the little 
Creek and walked along the bed of it 
between high mud walls over which I 
could not see. I experienced a shut-in 
feeling. A sandy bottom covered with 
a few inches of water; bright blue sky 
overhead and dark brown walls. The 
creek curved first one way and then an- 
other and permitted no distant views, 
but I contrived to make progress. As 
the tide rose, I would gain a few feet 
and would then sit on the bow of the 
boat and wait for more water. It was 
lonely and I felt a thousand miles away 
from anyone. I coaxed that boat for a 
good half hour. 
At last, on turning a comer in the 
winding creek, I could see open water 
ahead. As I approached, a flock of 
ducks, fifteen or twenty, that had evi- 
dently been feeding on little crustaceans 
on a mud flat near the mouth, rose with 
a roar of wings. I forgot my loneliness 
and prayed for the tide so that I could 
get placed and ready. 
E el grass cove into which I now 
came is a little crescent, facing open 
water on the north and east. I 
had approached through the marshes 
from the south and from it could look 
toward the entrance of the harbor and 
see the lighthouse four or more miles 
away. The tide that noon still had fifty 
feet of flat to cover before reaching the 
thatch on my point. In an hour it had 
covered this. I had cut with a jack- 
knife, thatch to cover the deck; had set 
forked twigs, brought for the purpose, 
in holes along the washboards of the 
cockpit and had brushed these twigs 
over with thatch. Ready for business 
you see. I sat down in the boat screened 
by my breastwork. Nothing happened. 
Then the wind freshened as the tide rose. 
It was a beautiful sunny day. I sat 
patiently for an hour or more and then 
all at once a flock of ducks came over my 
decoys. I did not see them until they 
had arrived and I poured both barrels 
of my first double gun, a mongrel with 
hammers, into the thick of them. I was 
green in those days so, although they 
were rudely surprised, they were quite 
uninjured. I blush to say that this hap- 
pened several times. At last a flock 
came down over the decoys almost to 
the lighting point, changed their minds 
and rose. The last two almost wet their 
webbed feet, which were sticking out to 
light. Instinctively I shot first at one 
and then at the other and got both. Of 
course I had been told many times to 
pick my birds even among a flock, but 
had not sense enough to reason it out. 
I could not see the holes in the flock for 
ducks. 
I pushed the boat out from the thatch 
and like a floating farm yard poled out 
and picked up my birds — they were 
sprigtails and I admired them and 
thought them the most beautiful I had 
ever seen. I began to scan the sky line 
closely and thus saw my next flock long 
before it arrived. They were black 
ducks and decoyed beautifully. Presently 
I became aware of someone shooting a 
mile across the water on my left on a 
point of marsh which I afterward came 
to know as Slough Point. The shooter 
left shortly in his boat and I still heard 
him another mile to the north on the 
high marsh. 
The tide was at flood. My boat was 
high in the thatch on the point and 
the tips of the reeds projected above 
the water barely enough to cover its con- 
siderable freeboard. The brushed-over 
twigs must have looked like a thatch is- 
land. A wide prospect now opened; to 
the north the seven-mile line of sentinel 
sand dunes were creamy in the sunlight, 
with thickets of pine and brown scrub 
oak in the valleys and patches of dull 
sage greens and reds on their sides; to 
the west and south, miles of golden 
thatch extending to the shores and lit- 
tle white specks of farm houses between 
the marsh and the woods that stood along 
the sky line. 
My first ducks were shot after three 
o’clock and at the end of the short au- 
tumn afternoon, I had nine, mostly 
blacks. Toward sunset flock after flock 
poured into the marshes from seaward. 
They came in beautiful horizontal lines, 
crescent shaped, the ends bent back, those 
in the center flying abreast. They passed 
over, fifty yards or more high without 
decoying. Billy rowed over from the 
high marsh to the north, the stem of his 
boat piled with a variegated bag, black 
ducks, sprigs, mallards and teal. I shall 
never forget that picture; the sun set- 
ting red over the golden marsh grass 
behind me, Billy resting on his oars, the 
stern of his boat piled with ducks, my 
own modest bag at my feet and the 
stream of ducks flying steadily overhead 
into the west. 
It was dark when we got back to 
the shack, tired but well satisfied with 
the day. Long after supper, the door 
was thrown open and a youth from the 
home village stood on the threshold with 
eyes popping out of his head and his 
mouth open. Billy was on the floor tying 
up the birds. Dodo had driven the six 
miles of sandy road to see how we fared. 
His first words were, “Why in thunder 
didn’t I come when you asked me?” The 
thunder storm had decided him. It 
was too early in the season for 
ducking, as we usually associate this 
sport with wild weather, rough and 
blowy. This had been a perfect autumn 
day, mild and sunny with a light south- 
west breeze. Billy, after observing the 
general trend of the flight, had gone 
ashore on Black Banks, the high marsh 
on the north side not far from the line 
of sand dunes and had put his decoys in 
a pond hole. He had ensconced himself 
in the thatch on the edge of a small 
creek that made in there. His bag testi- 
fied to his good judgment and good shoot- 
ing. 
W ITH so many birds in the marshes, 
we made an early start next 
morning, Saturday. We break- 
fasted at four and Oscar and I were in 
place on Eel Grass Cove before day- 
light. Even so the ducks went out with- 
out decoying and we got a few birds for 
our trouble. Later we joined Billy and 
all three went over to Black Banks on 
the north side to see if anything was 
stirring. It was low water, about ten 
o’clock, and we did not expect much. On 
Little Sand Island, we stopped to see 
two of the Barnstable boys, Horton and 
his brother Marcus, who were digging 
clams. They had guns with them and 
expected to shoot when the tide drove 
them out. 
About noon, the tide was coming in 
A strip of beach and high dunes form the coast 
